My practice in the art of portrait-painting, if it has done nothing else, has at least fitted me to turn my talents (such as they are) to a great variety of uses.  I have not only taken the likenesses of men, women, and children, but have also extended the range of my brush, under stress of circumstances, to horses, dogs, houses, and in one case even to a bull—­the terror and glory of his parish, and the most truculent sitter I ever had.  The beast was appropriately named “Thunder and Lightning,” and was the property of a gentleman-farmer named Garthwaite, a distant connection of my wife’s family.

How it was that I escaped being gored to death before I had finished my picture is more than I can explain to this day.  “Thunder and Lightning” resented the very sight of me and my color-box, as if he viewed the taking of his likeness in the light of a personal insult.  It required two men to coax him, while a third held him by a ring in his nostrils, before I could venture on beginning to work.  Even then he always lashed his tail, and jerked his huge head, and rolled his fiery eyes with a devouring anxiety to have me on his horns for daring to sit down quietly and look at him.  Never, I can honestly say, did I feel more heartily grateful for the blessings of soundness of limb and wholeness of skin, than when I had completed the picture of the bull!

One morning, when I had but little more than half done my unwelcome task, my friend and I were met on our way to the bull’s stable by the farm bailiff, who informed us gravely that “Thunder and Lightning” was just then in such an especially surly state of temper as to render it quite unsafe for me to think of painting him.  I looked inquiringly at Mr. Garthwaite, who smiled with an air of comic resignation, and said, “Very well, then, we have nothing for it but to wait till to-morrow.  What do you say to a morning’s fishing, Mr. Kerby, now that my bull’s bad temper has given us a holiday?”

I replied, with perfect truth, that I knew nothing about fishing.  But Mr. Garthwaite, who was as ardent an angler in his way as Izaak Walton himself, was not to be appeased even by the best of excuses.  “It is never too late to learn,” cried he.  “I will make a fisherman of you in no time, if you will only attend to my directions.”  It was impossible for me to make any more apologies, without the risk of appealing discourteous.  So I thanked my host for his friendly intentions, and, with some secret misgivings, accepted the first fishing-rod that he put into my hands.

“We shall soon get there,” said Mr. Garthwaite.  “I am taking you to the best mill-stream in the neighborhood.”  It was all one to me whether we got there soon or late and whether the stream was good or bad.  However, I did my best to conceal my unsportsman-like apathy; and tried to look quite happy and very impatient to begin, as we drew near to the mill, and heard louder and louder the gushing of many waters all round it.